Well…my response may not suit others but it suits me…
With the coming of Christ, we are no longer under the mosaic law. This was quite definitely settled at the council of Jerusalem in Acts. We are now under the law of love - that we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves…this is the root of all the rest.
Of course the Church has retained the ten commandments because they came directly from God to Moses and because the Ten commandments embody so briefly and beautifully this idea of love.
But these commands, which belong to the OT covenant must be understood in the light of the NT covenant and the Church as Jesus has set it up.
Jesus gave tot he Church the authority to bind and loose - whatever (Mt 18:15-18). The Church has used that authority to properly teach the truth of the gospel and to make interpretation where needed and to settle disputes when necessary. This extends event to the understanding and application of the 10 commandments.
The OT commandment is to keep the sabbath…the last day of the week…in the NT covenant the Church, with authority, has bound us to keep “the Lord’s day” which is the first day of the week. Likewise, in the OT covenant the prohibition was against “graven images”…In the NT covenant the Church, using her authority, has further defined how we are to understand this command.
Ultimately, so long as we are acting within what the Church has decreed in her teachings…that is, we are submitting to the God given authority over us, then we are not disobeying God.
To further clarify…from the
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
- IV. “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . .”>
2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . "It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. “He is the all,” but at the same time “he is greater than all his works.” He is “the author of beauty.”
2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.69
2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new “economy” of images.
2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it."The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone:
Code:
Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.
Hope this helps…
Peace
James
. All joking aside, kneeling at a statue or picture is not worshiping that image itself, but rather a reflective spot to do some praying. The image helps us think of what we need to pray about, but we don’t believe the images hold an mystical power.
I doubt it.
